Medling i Sverige - Behöver medlarens roll förstärkas?
(2008)Department of Law
- Abstract
- Mediation in Sweden within the Criminal Law is a relatively new occurrence that has emerged primarily during the 1990´s through local initiatives. In the year 2002 a Law on Mediation (2002:445) was introduced after the government showed interest on mediation and found that mediation hade positive effects, especially on young offenders. The purpose of this thesis is primarily to explain how established mediation in Sweden is and how established the mediators role and thereafter to examine whether there is room to develop the mediation in Sweden and, with that, develop the mediators role. I will accomplish this by firstly explain the theoretical background to mediation which is the Restorative Justice movement. This movement has got a lot of... (More)
- Mediation in Sweden within the Criminal Law is a relatively new occurrence that has emerged primarily during the 1990´s through local initiatives. In the year 2002 a Law on Mediation (2002:445) was introduced after the government showed interest on mediation and found that mediation hade positive effects, especially on young offenders. The purpose of this thesis is primarily to explain how established mediation in Sweden is and how established the mediators role and thereafter to examine whether there is room to develop the mediation in Sweden and, with that, develop the mediators role. I will accomplish this by firstly explain the theoretical background to mediation which is the Restorative Justice movement. This movement has got a lot of international attention but there is not too much material in Swedish to find concerning Restorative Justice. The goal of Restorative Justice is to challenge the traditional Legal system. Instead of punishing, the goal is to try to ''heal'' the crime and make sure that everyone who is affected by the crime i.e. the criminal, the victim and the community, can reach restitution. Mediation is a part of this paradigm so it is necessary to start with explaining the thoughts behind Restorative Justice to understand what the purpose of mediation is. I will then explain mediation in Sweden by starting in the individual initiatives that was the very start of mediation in Sweden in the late 1980´s. Mediation thus started without a strong theoretical or even legal ground, the law on mediation therefore followed on already established mediation projects. The law on mediation in Sweden emerged because the government considered mediation to have positive effects and because mediation arranged by the government and the municipalities has to fulfill the demands of rule of law. Mediation in Sweden is, as mentioned, a rather young phenomenon and therefore I have chosen to compare our Swedish mediation system with a country that has a longer tradition of both the incorporation of Restorative Justice principles within their Legal system and in addition a stronger institutionalization of mediation&semic our neighboring country of Norway. To investigate how Norway has constructed their mediation system I start with describing how the Restorative Justice ideals have been acknowledged in Norway. The Norwegian Restorative Justice inspiration seems to be found in partly a movement that emerged during the 1970´s and that was called ''alternative conflict resolution'', and party in an article by the Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie. This article inspired the Norwegian system with ''Conflict councils'' Min egen fria översättning av konfliktråd. which is a municipal system where the conflict councils are responsible for the mediation within the municipality and are financed directly from the government. This comparison between Swedish and Norwegian mediation combined with a short outlook on mediation in Europe creates an interesting discussion about mediation in Sweden. In January 2008 the National Council for Crime Prevention's government assignment to support mediation in Sweden ends, which means that there is no responsible organization to train mediators or finance the mediation projects. Instead the municipalities themselves are required by law to offer mediation within the municipality. I mean that it could constitute a problem that Sweden doesn't have a system similar to the Norwegian. They have a strong, governmentally financed organization that controls that mediation within the municipalities is of an even quality, and that the mediator competence is on a level that corresponds between the different municipalities. A lack of such an organization in Sweden constitutes a risk that the governments goals on mediation can't be obtained. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/1558776
- author
- Johansson, Henrik
- supervisor
- organization
- year
- 2008
- type
- H3 - Professional qualifications (4 Years - )
- subject
- keywords
- Straffrätt
- language
- Swedish
- id
- 1558776
- date added to LUP
- 2010-03-08 15:55:23
- date last changed
- 2010-03-08 15:55:23
@misc{1558776,
abstract = {{Mediation in Sweden within the Criminal Law is a relatively new occurrence that has emerged primarily during the 1990´s through local initiatives. In the year 2002 a Law on Mediation (2002:445) was introduced after the government showed interest on mediation and found that mediation hade positive effects, especially on young offenders. The purpose of this thesis is primarily to explain how established mediation in Sweden is and how established the mediators role and thereafter to examine whether there is room to develop the mediation in Sweden and, with that, develop the mediators role. I will accomplish this by firstly explain the theoretical background to mediation which is the Restorative Justice movement. This movement has got a lot of international attention but there is not too much material in Swedish to find concerning Restorative Justice. The goal of Restorative Justice is to challenge the traditional Legal system. Instead of punishing, the goal is to try to ''heal'' the crime and make sure that everyone who is affected by the crime i.e. the criminal, the victim and the community, can reach restitution. Mediation is a part of this paradigm so it is necessary to start with explaining the thoughts behind Restorative Justice to understand what the purpose of mediation is. I will then explain mediation in Sweden by starting in the individual initiatives that was the very start of mediation in Sweden in the late 1980´s. Mediation thus started without a strong theoretical or even legal ground, the law on mediation therefore followed on already established mediation projects. The law on mediation in Sweden emerged because the government considered mediation to have positive effects and because mediation arranged by the government and the municipalities has to fulfill the demands of rule of law. Mediation in Sweden is, as mentioned, a rather young phenomenon and therefore I have chosen to compare our Swedish mediation system with a country that has a longer tradition of both the incorporation of Restorative Justice principles within their Legal system and in addition a stronger institutionalization of mediation&semic our neighboring country of Norway. To investigate how Norway has constructed their mediation system I start with describing how the Restorative Justice ideals have been acknowledged in Norway. The Norwegian Restorative Justice inspiration seems to be found in partly a movement that emerged during the 1970´s and that was called ''alternative conflict resolution'', and party in an article by the Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie. This article inspired the Norwegian system with ''Conflict councils'' Min egen fria översättning av konfliktråd. which is a municipal system where the conflict councils are responsible for the mediation within the municipality and are financed directly from the government. This comparison between Swedish and Norwegian mediation combined with a short outlook on mediation in Europe creates an interesting discussion about mediation in Sweden. In January 2008 the National Council for Crime Prevention's government assignment to support mediation in Sweden ends, which means that there is no responsible organization to train mediators or finance the mediation projects. Instead the municipalities themselves are required by law to offer mediation within the municipality. I mean that it could constitute a problem that Sweden doesn't have a system similar to the Norwegian. They have a strong, governmentally financed organization that controls that mediation within the municipalities is of an even quality, and that the mediator competence is on a level that corresponds between the different municipalities. A lack of such an organization in Sweden constitutes a risk that the governments goals on mediation can't be obtained.}},
author = {{Johansson, Henrik}},
language = {{swe}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{Medling i Sverige - Behöver medlarens roll förstärkas?}},
year = {{2008}},
}